Jim is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media."

Jim covered Congress and The White House during the George W. Bush administration for The Washington Times, and worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. He has appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, and many local and national talk radio shows to talk politics and policy.

WASHINGTON, DC (March 23, 2017) — Three hundred very happy scientists, economists, elected officials, and medical doctors – and one astronaut – gathered in Washington, DC on Thursday for the first of two days of presentations on the science, economics, and politics of climate change.

Spirits were high as speaker after speaker congratulated one another for persuading the new Trump administration to “end the Obama administration’s war on fossil fuels waged under the false flag of ‘global warming.’”

In opening remarks, the president of The Heartland Institute, Joseph Bast, said, “Most scientists don’t believe climate change is mostly man-made and dangerous. Most of the public don’t believe it, either. Now, we have a president who doesn’t believe it.”

Myron Ebell, who chaired the Trump transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, was on hand to address the audience and receive an award for “speaking truth to power.” He said the conference was “the most important event to educate Washington, DC on climate science since President Trump took office.”

Steven Milloy, another member of Trump’s EPA transition team, said the event was “a great opportunity for climate realists to strategize for the Trump administration on what to do about climate change.”

Willie Soon, a prominent climate scientist whose research shows the human influence on climate is smaller and less predictable than claimed by government scientists working for the Obama administration, was also on the program. He said, “no one should be surprised when history records that this conference and the eleven that preceded it played a major role in protecting open and objective science at a time when politics and the tactics of intimidation threatened to extinguish it.”

On the schedule for Friday are Christopher Monckton, a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher; Dr. William Happer, a distinguished professor of physics at Princeton University; and scientists and economists affiliated with several think tanks. The conference is being live-streamed at Heartland.org.

Global Warming Skeptics Gather in Washington, DC to Celebrate Victories, Plot Next Steps was last modified: March 24th, 2017 by Jim Lakely